Villa Fiorentina, Mediterranean villa in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France.
Villa Fiorentina is a private villa built in 1919 on the Pointe Saint-Hospice at the tip of Cap Ferrat. Its pale facade with regularly spaced rectangular windows and a terracotta roof rises behind tall dark green trees above a rocky shore and small pebble beach. A tower-like section with small arched openings tops the upper level, and a column-supported terrace runs along the lower level.
Villa Fiorentina was built in 1919 by Thérèse Vitali, Countess of Beauchamps, on the Pointe Saint-Hospice at the tip of Cap Ferrat, modelled on Vignola's Palazzina della Vigna. She commissioned architect Aaron Messiah and landscaper Harold Peto, while Ferdinand Bac designed the interiors and the themed gardens. In 1919 it passed to Edmund Gabriel Davis, then in 1939 to Enid Lindeman, later Countess of Kenmare.
The name La Fiorentina honours the Cannes palace of the owner's father, Count Vitali. The gardens were laid out by Ferdinand Bac, with a cloister, an enclosed garden and a Moorish garden modelled on that of the villa Cypris. In the 1950s and 1960s the villa hosted many society parties attended by figures such as Greta Garbo and Elizabeth Taylor.
La Fiorentina is a private property at 13, impasse Fiorentina, in the Le Plan des Abeilles area of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat; it is not open to the public, so the house and gardens can only be seen from outside. The entrance lies at the end of the impasse, and the cypress-lined axis with its marble steps running down to the sea belongs to the estate.
The villa was built for Thérèse Vitali, comtesse de Beauchamps, in the manner of Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola's Palazzina della Vigna. She named it after her father Count Vitali's palace in Cannes. The gardens were laid out by Ferdinand Bac, who added a cloister, a walled garden and a Moorish garden modelled on that of the villa Cypris.
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